1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to systems for presenting a visual display of information for advertising or other purposes and more specifically to a system which includes vehicles having programmable on-board controllers for visual displays.
2. Background History
Mobile displays have proven to be as an effective advertising medium and has remained intact from inception in virtually all formats, from the person wearing a sandwich board to the ice cream vendor's truck with an illustration of an ice cream popcicle, trucks indicating the source of their contents, taxi, bus, railroad and subway car billboards and more recent innovations, such as, buses entirely wrapped in electrostatic marking film carrying advertising graphics as well as cargoless vehicles carrying billboards traversing streets of metropolitan areas.
Advertising was known to be time and location sensitive. Among the disadvantages heretofore encountered with vehicle mounted visual displays has been the inability to efficiently deliver the intended message to a target audience in desired geographic zones and specified time slots so that advertising revenues could be maximized in accordance with the value delivered.
For example, a local dry cleaning establishment on the upper west side of a city might wish to target only upper west side customers while a movie theatre in the same locale may wish to target potential customers from a larger geographic base.
The dry cleaning establishment with a limited advertising budget desired to pay for vehicle mounted billboard advertising only when the vehicle e.g. bus or taxi, was in the upper west side while, the movie theatre perceived value in displaying its billboard message throughout the city.
Similarly, business which desired to attract children, e.g. amusement parks, did not wish to bear costs associates with mobile billboard displays when their target customers were not available, e.g. during the times of day when children were in school or in the late evening. Mobile billboards heretofore known were deficient in providing versatility in these and several other aspects.
There was a further need to facilitate rapid changes in vehicle display format and/or content to deliver the advertiser's message coordinated with the time of day and vehicle location and the parameters of the vehicle carrying the message, e.g. speed, outside weather conditions, density of like vehicles in same geographic zone, etc.
The advertiser's needs with respect to receiving advertising billing which reflected specific desired dates, times of day, duration of display, specific locale wherein the advertiser's message was displayed were unfulfilled.